The funniest thing in the world

You know how you see something and it really is the funniest thing in the world? How it brings on instant giggles?

Up until yesterday, the funniest thing I had ever seen was a very-but-not-too-clever sheepdog failing to work out that the stick it was carrying – at some speed – was wider than the bridge he wanted to cross. Superb comedy moment, I wish I’d had a camera.

Well, yesterday capped it all. And I had a camera. What’s the sound of 1100 piglets running? I don’t know, I was too busy laughing. It was soooooooo funny. Son-in-law Tom is a dairy farmer in North Yorkshire, but uses one of his barns to bring up pigs. A couple of weeks ago 1100 arrived – they’ll be there a couple of months, in which time they’ll put on about 50kg and then move on.

As soon as we arrived, the piglets took flight – not flying pigs, you understand, just running very fast and all in one direction. It was amazing! They weren’t coy for long. Intensely curious and highly intelligent, they crowded Tom to get a closer look. One even had a nibble at his bottom. Ooo err missus, the cheek of it!

Naturally, there were piggy factions. There were the Runners Around – led by two pigs who looked like Hercule Poirot. There were the Greedy Pigs who were far too interested in food to run around like idiots and there were the Cool Pigs who were just too cool to ever raise an oink as they slept on the warm. clean straw.

Tom he took one-year-old Elisabeth into the barn. She'd hinted she wanted to go by making snorting noises. She was barefoot – and the piglets had a good sniff which, judging from the giggles, tickled gloriously..

Tom spends many an hour watching the piglets who, he now thinks, spend many an hour watching them. Their favourite trick, the piglets, that is, is to dig up pebbles and carry them to the water trough where they block the water supply. Oh dear, Farmer Tom has to go unblock it at the piglets stand back and watch. Is that the sound of piglets sniggering? I think so!